Hello,

My WD20EARS got a slight hit while it fell on its side during copying files. The drive stopped working and while powered on it's making a few number of clicking before it's powered off itself.
I have access to advanced clean room so I carefuly opend the drive and looked for a head problem. Looking under magnifying glass it seems like the heads are magically intact (the black magnets seems to fit exactly in their places). I also tried replacing the PCB (even though I can hardly belive it was damaged) with an exactly the same one with no results.

My question is - Is there a chance that head problem is invisible under magnifying glass? What else could be the couse of the problem?

Heads went bad.


Yes.


Wasted time and / or money.

You need to have drive evaluated by a professional who knows what he's doing.
Heads on your drive are bad and there is nothing YOU can do about it. Having access to a clean room does not solve your problem unfortunately. Since the fall happened during read/write operation there is a big chance your drive also suffers from surface damage.

Good luck

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http://www.northwind.gr
SandForce SSD Recovery
Ransomware Reverse Engineering - NoMoreRansom! partners

The surface damage should be visible? I looked at the first platter and it looks crystal clear. Should I expect the other platters also be without any damage?

Not necessarily.


No. One surface can be bad, where others can be good.
Again, damage could not be visible, and you have no way of looking on other surfaces.

_________________
http://www.northwind.gr
SandForce SSD Recovery
Ransomware Reverse Engineering - NoMoreRansom! partners

What chances do you think the surface has damage in case described?
Is there any way to know that before replacing the heads?

can you tell me please what should I look for while replacing the heads for not having such a problem

Also it's not so clear to me how to disassemble the heads as there's no usual screw above the head stack.

This is one question that will not get a very favoriable answer here from a professional. If you are asking this question this tells us that you have no idea what you are doing and attempting a head swap will only destroy your chances of ever finding your data on this drive. I do believe that now it is open if you stop what you are trying and send this one in to a professional company they can do this for you. But if you keep playing around on this and attempt a head swap then you are only causing more problems with this drive and will pay a higher price if you do decide to send it in for repair. I wish you very good luck on this one and do not suggest that you go further with attempting a head swap if you do not understand how to remove the heads and put in new one.

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Iorana Haraharaini